Leslie

July 6, 2013

Leslie died on Wednesday evening.

She didn’t want to die, of course, but she didn’t hold herself above death or see any reason she should be out of its reach. Bill, her husband, quoted Les to a group of us in a letter he wrote shortly after she died:

While she was in the hospital, she was visited by a chaplain and this is what Les had to say about her dying:

“I’ve had a good life. I’m ready. I trust in the process, the flow. Little fishes die, big trees die, who am I not to die too? Abraham Lincoln did it, my mother did it, my neighbor did it, I can do it too.”

I can imagine a small lift of one shoulder to dismiss her own importance as she said this. How like her to combine Abraham Lincoln, the old trees, her neighbor, her mother, the fish – the great and the so-called ordinary. She was extraordinary, a great soul, but also as ordinary and real a person as you’d ever want to know.

The day after Leslie died, I took my iPad over to Alice’s apartment and played her song, The River. Alice pressed the iPad against her good ear and listened intently. She could make out the melody and some, though not all, of the lyrics. When she put the iPad down, she turned to me and said, “How wonderful that you all have this.” And when I showed her the photograph of all of us around our friend in her hospital bed, Alice zeroed in on Leslie. Her finger touched just below Les’s face, and she said, “So brave. So brave.”

Thank you for your kind, sensitive, and touching comments and e-mail responses to the post, What to Take to a Dying Friend, and thank you for sharing it with so many people through re-blogging, through Facebook, and privately with people you love, as well as with support groups for cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

NOTE: The copyright for all of Leslie’s music and lyrics belongs to her family. Please do not reproduce without permission. If you want to know how to get permission, feel free to contact me and I’ll direct you. Write to: andrea AT andreacarlisle DOT com.)

What a wonderful,lovely woman ! May her next incarnation be swift and pleasant. May I die with such grace and lack of fear.

I am a Buddhist and see death as only the next step in the circle. It is not THE END of anything, only another beginning, another chance to get it all right. It is easy to say this when death is not staring me in the face. What will it be then? I don’t know.

I wrote that last before I went to the picture of all of you with Leslie and to hear her magical song. I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face for the sheer beauty of it all. The song will become one I sing and share for a long time. Thank you, Andrea, for giving me so much so often.

She was heroic. I hope I can be as brave -when my time comes- as she was -as she navigated the harrowing waters of passage. Condolences to all her family and many friends. thank you for sharing this , Andrea.

You Are Here…

...with Alice and me. I’m a woman in my 60s who, like many others, finds that one of my main tasks these days is taking care of my mother. Alice (photo below) is 99. She moved from Iowa to Oregon five years ago and lives in an apartment in an assisted living facility she calls The Place. This blog is pretty much all Alice all the time, with occasional diversions to other topics, such as family histories, aging, art, the art of aging, and poetry.

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